


Music Challenge

by bar2d2s



Category: The Flash (Comics)
Genre: M/M, there is so much sex and I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 05:05:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3923962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't a challenge, so much as a new way of annoying a friend of mine. Every story was written while listening to a different Ke$ha song. 2013 was a year of hilarity and regret. Series of one-shots written from 2013 to 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Make the Most of the Night

If someone were to ask Owen what he liked to do best on the weekends, after ‘fuck Axel’ and 'text Kara’, he’d probably have to say clubbing.

He’d never had the best luck with bars. Let’s face it, since meeting his father, he’d been abducted from every bar he set foot in alone. Clubs, however, were different. Pounding music, people he didn’t know pressing in on all sides, expensive as fuck drinks. It was a totally different experience, and he loved it.

“Play Paranoid!”

Clubbing with Axel was…well, it was definitely interesting. Axel, who was clumsy on the ground, unless he was in his stupid fucking sky-high heels. He bumped into no less than five people as he made his way back to the bar, but grinned at Owen when he sat down.

“Check it, O! Wallets!”

…of course, he’d been stealing from them. Owen emptied the wallets of their cash, stuffing the shells into his coat pockets.

“I told you not to do that this close to home, baby.”

They were in Central. It was why Axel wasn’t dressed up tonight, why he wasn’t supposed to be robbing people. No one needed to know the Trickster and Captain Boomerang were back in town just yet. Let Axel go buck wild in Star City, lipstick the town red in Opal, pick the pockets of everyone he met in Gotham. But in Central, they had to be careful. Keystone was just next door, and there were more than a few people who wanted them strung up by their ankles in the area. Axel just rolled his eyes, hailing the bartender.

“Like I give a f- uh. Hey! Hold on. Hey! Hey, I see you over there!” He was shouting, waving wildly at a tall man in the corner who looked like he hadn’t washed his hair in a week. The man’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling, and he started making his way over. “Thought it was you, ya greasy bastard. O, this is Joey. You know him better when he’s nine feet tall and molten.”

This 'Joey’ was tall, as tall as Owen was. He wore a ratty leather jacket, even in the heat of the club, but his jeans looked new. They still had little creases pressed in them, like he’d ditched his old pants in the dressing room and just walked out with them. If Joey was who Owen thought he was, then yeah, that was probably the case.

“Tar Pit. Yeah, hey.” Owen was playing it cool. Coolish. He was watching Joey like a hawk, though, because suddenly, he was a lot more threatening.

Axel was either an oblivious idiot, or he wanted Owen to fight for him. Maybe both. All Owen knew was that he  _wasn’t_  shy about having his hands on this other guy, right in front of him.

“-and in Metropolis, it was so rad, totally ran into the Toyman and he gave me this, hahaha! Check it out!” In Metropolis, the Toyman had given Axel a sonic conversion kit, because he felt the kid had too many explosions and not enough sense-scramblers. Owen had made sure to stay between the two of them at all times. But that wasn’t important now, because Axel’s hand.

Was on Joey’s wrist.

The brat caught Owen’s eye and smirked.

“We need to talk.” He was dragging Axel away from the bar by the back of his pants, with the blonde chanting a symphony of ows as they went. Once they were by the bathrooms, Owen slammed him against the wall. “What the  _fuck_  was that all about?” Axel tried to look innocent, his eyes going huge behind the big, square glasses that Owen told him made him look smart.

“What was what? Joey’s my bro. We chilled before I even met you. Am I not allowed to have friends now that we fuck?”

That stung. Call him a romantic, but spending nearly two months on the road with Axel’s annoying ass had definitely upgraded them from bros-who-fuck into legit boyfriends. He let Axel go. “Whatever. I’m getting a drink.” He was shoving his way back to the bar when he felt someone tug on his back pocket. “Ax, I swear to fuck-”

“Okay, I wanna do you both.” That froze him in his tracks. It wasn’t Axel tugging at him, it was Joey. He’d followed them, somehow, and from the way Axel was still stuck to the wall, he hadn’t been expecting this little plot twist either. Which is how they ended up stumbling through the front door of Joey’s shitty little walkup apartment, drunk off their asses three hours later.

It had been a fairly long negotiation process. At first, Owen had just said no. No way. Not happening. He was a jealous man by nature, though his easygoing personality hid that fact pretty well. He’d been marking Axel as his quite thoroughly for months now, and there was no way some guido-looking drug dealer was going to  _take_  what was _his_. An entire bottle of vodka on someone else’s dime changed his tune a bit. Okay, a lot. Which was why he was just gripping the arm of Joey’s couch hard enough to rip it and taking a straight swig from their to-go bottle rather than hauling off and punching Joey for daring to have Axel sit in his lap as he shoved his tongue down the blonde’s throat.

Axel moaned into their kiss, and Owen grinned as he spotted a flash of sharp white teeth just before…yup. Joey yelped, pulling back to lick the blood droplets off his lower lip. Owen had little bruises all over his body from those teeth, his own inner lips practically callused from all the biting Axel did. Not that he ever complained. Axel’s lips and tongue _more_  than made up for the damage his teeth caused.

Giggling in a dazed way, Axel flopped off of Joey’s lap, crawling to Owen on his hands and knees until he could rest his cheek on Owen’s thigh. “Gimme some of that.” He opened his mouth expectantly, sticking out his tongue a bit. Owen laughed, then drank from the bottle himself.

“You want some, baby?” He took another swig, then kissed Axel hard, 'pouring’ it into his mouth that way. Axel went boneless, and Owen picked him up, holding him in his own lap. Across the room, Joey stared at them, jaw slack. He stood, taking a step towards the couch.

“That was…fuck. You two are… _fuck_.” He gripped his hair in frustration, then relaxed and shed his jacket. Somehow, standing there in just his stolen jeans and old wifebeater, he looked bigger without it. Joey was pale from all the time his body had spent in the Iron Heights infirmary while he was Tar Pit, but his wide shoulders and strong arms more than made up for his basement-dweller pallor, and Owen immediately noticed how Axel bit his own lip, following the lines of Joey’s muscles with his eyes. Axel had a  _thing_  for strong men, as he’d confessed to Owen one night, after Owen caught him beating off to a picture in the paper of Len trading blows with the Flash. Just another secret part of his life that Axel didn’t want the others to know about.

“Hey, you wanna hear something great?” His mouth was moving on auto-pilot. Joey cocked his head, and even Axel glanced up at him through his lashes. “Axel looks fucking hot as a chick.” Axel’s face paled, eyes going wide behind the glasses he still hadn’t taken off. “When we go to a club out of town, he dresses up and hangs out at the bar alone, then flirts with guys until I come and steal him away.” And really, wasn’t this just an extension of their little game? Axel lived to make him jealous, but this was going above and beyond the call of duty. “First time he’s done it as a guy, though.” Okay, that was slightly mean. He was making it seem like they were fucking with him without actually planning on fucking him. Joey’s face fell.

“That, that ain’t right, man. Fuckin’ with my head like that ain’t right.” Because Joey wasn’t just some random guy. He was supposed to be Axel’s  _friend_. Owen leaned down, breathing a suggestion into Axel’s ear.

“Hey, go apologize for biting him.”

With a grin, Axel poured himself back onto his feet, snagging Joey’s waistband as soon as it was in range. He had a beer gut, albeit a small one, and the confusing sensation of the combination of fat over otherwise hard muscle caused Axel to sigh as he dropped to his knees. Joey made a little choked noise as Axel pulled out his dick, and Owen wrinkled his nose. Uncircumsized. A little longer that Owen’s, but slimmer. And then Axel’s lips were wrapping around it, and Owen felt positively sorry for the guy when Joey tried to reach out to hold onto a wall and just found empty air. So he carded both hands into Axel’s hair, trying not to thrust into the hot wetness that was Axel’s talented little mouth, and-

“G-god, so this is what I have to do to get you to shut the fuck up.” That causes Axel to choke, and Owen to burst out laughing, and then he’s pulling Axel off and shoving Joey towards what he  _thinks_  is the bedroom. He’s right, and the bed’s right there. Axel sprawls across it like a pin-up model, except he still has entirely too many clothes on.

Owen sized Joey up. Through his vodka monocle, the other man was starting to look almost hot. Of course, the rest of him knew that he was a threat, but the important parts were warming to the idea. Owen got him by the back of the neck, mashing their mouths together violently, without a shred of grace. Joey tasted like cheap cigarettes and vodka and Axel’s name, which he’d begun to moan. At first, Owen thought the other man had the bad habit of kissing with his eyes open, like Axel did, until he noticed that both eyes were locked on something that was definitely not his face.

Axel writhed naked on the unmade bed, two lube-slicked fingers deep in his ass as he fisted his own cock.

Owen groaned helplessly, shoving Joey away so that he could pull off his shirt, his pants already unbuttoned by the sheer force of his dick pushing against them. Climbing into bed with Axel, he grabbed the blonde’s wrist, stilling him on the in-stroke. He could feel Axel’s pulse beat rapidly as he tried to twist his fingers within himself, but Owen pulled them out.

“You want him? You gotta work for him.” Owen tossed the tube of lube of unknown origin at Joey; it bounced off his chest. He picked it up with shaky hands, and Axel whined, canting his hips up to thrust into Owen’s fist, which had taken over for his own. Owen tried to see through Joey’s eyes.

Axel’s legs were spread wide, his back arched, feet planted firmly on the bed. His body language was nothing more than a constant plea to be fucked, and Joey looked like he was planning on obliging. His fingers were wider than Axel’s, so it took a few tries before the blonde could accept two. Soon, however…

“M-more.” He gasped, baring his throat to Owen, who latched on without a second thought. Three fingers, four… “No, I mean,  _fuck_  me, dumbass!” Joey dropped the tube, which he’d been clutching with his free hand. Owen snorted, reaching for the condom in his wallet.

“This ride comes with a safety bar. No arguing.” The condom was literally snatched from his hand. As he fumbled to get it on, a drunken, nervous giggle bubbled out of Joey’s throat.

“I haven’t, uh, yeah. Since like a month before the first time I became Tar Pit. The first thing I did when I got my body back was jerk off and I-” Axel kicked him in the stomach. Not hard, but enough that he’d shut the hell up and get a move on. Joey tried to enter him as he was, on his back, but Axel sat up. 

“No, wait. Wait. Better idea. Just. You lay down.” Like a blitzed porn director, Axel arranged his bedmates so that Joey was on his back, legs hanging off the side of the bed, while Owen just sort of…stood next to the nightstand.

“Babe, what are you even trying to-” Axel shushed him before straddling Joey in reverse and slowly, carefully, began to impale himself on the other man’s cock. Joey let out a shout. Even with the condom, the heat and pressure from that angle was incredible. Axel dug his nails into Joey’s knees, spreading his own legs further to finish the slow, torturous slide down. Eventually, his ass met with the cradle of Joey’s hips, and it was then that he beckoned Owen forward, grabbing hold of his dick and, without any preamble, sucking it into his mouth.

Let it never be said that the second Trickster wasn’t as inventive as the first. With Joey’s hands on his hips, offering unneeded assistance in raising and lowering him, and Owen’s hands twisted in his hair, neither man was in any presence of mind to attempt to Eiffel Tower him. Both, however, were quite prone to babbling.

“Yeah, baby. Yeah. Just like that.” Owen whispered huskily, thumbing Axel’s ear as he swallowed around the thick member in his throat. When he began to hum, Owen nearly doubled over, his knees going weak. Axel had a mouth that was built for sucking cock, and Owen was always happy to tell him so. “ _Fffuck_ , Axel! You, goddamn. Baby…” He couldn’t finish, and Axel whimpered. Owen glanced down.

Joey was drawing blood.

Owen nearly pulled Axel off him, until his vision cleared and he saw the full picture. Joey’s nails were digging into the skin of Axel’s hips so hard, he was getting cut. Because the other man was trying to hold back. He’d been making abortive litte thrusts upwards, mostly content to let Axel move the way he wanted. But now Joey  _needed_  to move. Owen pulled his cock from Axel’s mouth, leaning down to kiss him.

“Hey, you.” Joey froze. “Get up, and fuck him against the wall.” Axel’s head shot up. “Trust me.” The younger man relaxed somewhat…until Joey didn’t pull out. He sat up, gathered as much of Axel as he could, and just…carried him over to the far side of the room to bend him over. Axel put both hands on the wall, then looked over his shoulder.

“O-”

“Already here.” He was on his knees in front of Axel. As Joey began to move in earnest, he took the blonde’s cock into his mouth. Sensation hit Axel so hard he jerked, grinding back against Joey and banging his head into the wall.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” The Italian man was chanting, the ends of the words practically sobbed. His hands were back on Axel’s hips, his entire body covering the smaller man. “Ax, I. I’m gonna. Fuck! God, Ax, I lo-  _fuck_!” Joey shuddered, shouting. Owen dragged his teeth over the head of Axel’s cock, his hand moving at a speed only he could fathom over his own painful erection.

Axel screamed.

When they finally came back to themselves, Joey was draped over Axel, arms around his midsection, his forehead pressed to the wall. Owen’s front, from his goatee to his naval, was sticky with the evidence of their evening. And Axel was unconscious.

“Heh, yeah. He’s a sleeper. Uhn! Here.” Owen groaned as he got to his feet, legs sore. Joey refused to let go. “Funny. Give him here, or I tell him what you almost said just now.” Panicked, the other man released the slumbering blonde, pulling out with a wet noise.

While Joey disposed of his condom, Owen carried Axel over to the bed, laying him out, then went to find the bathroom. Only a shower would get him truly clean, but he didn’t want to leave Axel that long. Not with Joey there. So he settled for mopping himself off with Joey’s only towel, then wetting it and scrubbing himself down as best he could. When he got back, the number of people in the bed had doubled.

“Look, man. I’m only going to say this once. Axel is  _mine_. I’m a reasonable man. I’ll let him play his games. But if you try and take him from me, I will  _kill_  you, and smile while I do it.” Joey pulled his hand back from where he’d been petting Axel’s hair, and the younger Rogue stirred.

“S'time t'go home?” Owen thought about returning to their hotel room in Central, but it was empty, and it’s not like they were planning on paying for it anyway. No, home was a whole different animal, and much, much closer. They’d crossed the bridge to get to Joey’s apartment, after all.

“Yeah, baby. Let’s go back.” He gathered up their clothes as Axel sat up and stretched, already half dressed by the time the blonde got on his underwear. It was nearly dawn when they left the apartment, hopping into Owen’s car for the full ten-block journey back to the warehouse. As they turned onto the street where the secret entrance stood, Axel cleared his throat.

“I heard what you said.” Owen’s blood ran cold, but he kept on driving.

“Yeah, so?” Axel fiddled with his seatbelt.

“I just, I’d fight for you too, y'know? Because we, we don’t just fuck.”

It was as close to a sappy romantic declaration as he was going to get at five in the morning, and Owen decided he’d take it as is.

“Yeah, I know. C'mon, Ax. Let’s see if they even noticed we were gone.”

And maybe, as they stepped through the mirror entrance into the sealed warehouse that served as their home, Axel took his hand.


	2. Send a Dirty Picture

“ _Send me something sexy, help me through the night._ ”

It wasn’t a request, it was more like an order. He and Owen had been fucking around all day, texting each other nonsense between robberies in Keystone and whatever hero shit Owen was pulling in some other city somewhere else. His thumbs scrambled across the keyboard.

“ _Red, black, or blue?_ ”

—

After being kicked out of his third strip club of the night, Joey finally had to admit to himself that he had a problem. For weeks, he’d been surfing alt modeling sites like Suicide Girls to find a skinny blonde with _just_  the right cut, all the while maintaining his mantra of no homo, no homo, no homo. But who was he kidding? Just earlier that day he’d gone back to his body after pulling a truckjacking with Axel, and literally came in his pants the minute he was realigned.

Maybe he wasn’t in love or anything, but he had it  _bad_  for the Trickster.

He wasn’t delusional. Joey knew he wasn’t the best looking guy. Hell, some days he had trouble getting strippers to take his dollar. But to Axel, he was a giant pile of tar, anyway, so what difference did it make? They’d only hung out once while Joey was ‘home’, and they’d mostly spent that time screwing around on the computer. They’d swapped numbers, but Axel only called when he needed Tar Pit for something. Never Joey.

His cell pinged, and Joey nearly jumped out of his skin. Text message. No, picture message… _whoa_.

Some babe had gotten a wrong number, and boy had he lucked out! The girl was a cute little blonde with luscious red lips and a penchant for slanted angle shots. Whoever she’d been sending this pic to would have gotten the full treatment; sheer thigh-highs attached to a black garter belt over black panties, with a black corset on top and a collar. Sure, she was kind of flat chested, but with legs like that, who the fuck  _cared_.

Something about her seemed familiar, though. The blue of her eyes, the shape of her chin…huh. Hm. Wait, he had her number saved in his phone.

Holy fucking shit, that’s Axel.

His dick went from mildly interested to paying full goddamn attention nigh-instantly. This picture was  _not_  meant for him. Wait, how was he saved in Axel’s phone again? Monteleone, J. Which meant this picture was meant for…Mardon, M? McCulloch, E? Fuck, fuck,  _fuck_.

Mercer, O.

The ex who might not be so much of an ex anymore. Fuck. Fuck! Joey slammed his head against the wall, stunning himself. Right, he wasn’t tar at the moment. He tried to walk it off, shaking his head. No use, most of the blood that was supposed to be up there happened to be stuck a bit further south. Groaning, he put his phone back in his pocket.

But not before emailing the picture to himself, for later.


	3. Young Love, Murdered

Axel grinned in partial-wakefulness as something rough scratched across his cheek. Owen could grow a five o'clock shadow by noon, which is why he carried an electric razor pretty much everywhere. But then he opened his eyes, and reality hit.

Prank nudged at his face again with his nose, whiskers tickling more than they scratched this time. The ferret had let himself out of his cage in the night and, while he’d been content to just let Axel toss and turn all night long, the talking was getting annoying. Mainly because he just kept saying the same thing over and over.

“Owen. No, come back. Please.”

Axel’s pet twitched its nose at him, and the ache in his chest lightened somewhat. He wasn’t alone, not completely. “At least I’ve still got my loyal sidekick.” He said, dragging the wriggly animal off his pillow and onto his neck. The steady beat of Axel’s pulse was lulling him to sleep, and the comforting warmth of Prank on his still-marked collarbone was doing the same for Axel. He was just falling back into dreamland, when the memories hit.

They’d been yelling. A lot. About stupid crap, like who was supposed to be watching what, and Axel accidentally catching some civillians in one of his T-bomb explosions. They said hurtful things, called each other names, and then Owen stormed out with Len and Evan, and he never came back.

Axel could have cried. He’d never wanted their thing, whatever it was, to end. Let alone like  _that_. And maybe he did cry. A little. In the shower, with the water cascading over his head. When he was wrapped up in the blankets he’d stolen from Owen’s bed in his fort, wiping his eyes and runny nose on the parts that didn’t smell like Irish Spring and sweat.

He composed a million texts, and never sent them. Picked up the phone a thousand times, but never hit send. He’d been to jail. He’d hurt people, killed them. He’d been beaten a hundred ways past Sunday, but trying to reach out to his maybe ex-boyfriend was officially harder and more painful than anything else. And then it hit him.

He couldn’t let Owen go because he, there was a good possibility at least…fuck. He  _loved_  Owen. More than anyone, or anything. True love hurts, and being without Owen was  _killing_  him. But then, Owen wasn’t calling him either.

And then Owen was on TV fighting  _next_  to Nightwing and Arsenal, and Axel knew he would never get him back. He stole an armload of bottles from the fridge and brought them back to his fort, drinking them all in the hope that tonight, he could sleep alone and not care.

It didn’t work. He woke with dried salt tracks on his cheeks and a pounding headache, but no pain anywhere else on his body came close to matching the ache in his chest. Life went on, as he knew it would, yet Axel felt empty. So he started going out at night, trying to start over. Find someone else who turned his head. That didn’t work, either. Every person he tried to kiss, tried to flirt with, just turned into Owen. So he pushed them away, until he finally found someone who was _nothing_  like Owen. Who  _couldn’t_  turn into Owen.

Joey wasn’t  _really_  what he wanted, but he was what he needed right now. And that was close enough.


	4. Let's Not Pretend It's Love

He felt like slime, which was a new experience. Joey was used to feeling like an asshole, like a thug, like an idiot. Feeling used. Technically, all those individal feelings had combined like Voltron to give him this awful, slimy feeling inside.

It really sucked, but then  _oh_ , so did Axel.

The little blonde had had him by the balls since the day they met,  but it had never been so… _literal_  before. Joey groaned, not trusting his hands to be gentle, so he squeezed his own thighs. They’d run into each other at one of Central’s seedier clubs, during a paint party. Axel’s hideous checkered pants were slung so low they were practically obscene, and he hadn’t been wearing a shirt. Glowing paint clung to his wiry torso, stained the trail of white-blonde hair on his stomach bright green and purple and orange. Axel was doused liberally with every color, actually. Every color but blue.

They’d gotten to talking, and Joey poured some vodka into Axel’s Red Bull, and then they  _really_  got to talking. Axel had a guy, but he hadn’t been returning his phone calls since the week before, when they’d had a fight. He’d been going out on any and every job he could to avoid Axel. So Axel decided to flip him the metaphorical bird and go out and party. And then Axel had looked at him and grinned, and there they were.

Axel was down on his knees, pants stretched uncomfortably tight over his own erection as he held Joey by the hips against the wall, his nose practically buried in the other man’s pubic hair. He giggled, and the vibration caused Joey to moan again, bucking his hips shallowly. Slowly, Axel pulled back, then dove right back in, setting a brutal pace. His teeth scraped over the skin a few times, but  _Jesus god_  did Joey not give a fuck right then and there.

“Owen’s not here.” Axel had breathed, getting up in Joey’s face. His skin, slick with sweat and paint, slid against Joey’s, staining his white tank. “I can think of a thing or two we could do right now that would piss the hell outta him.”

Joey remembered the first time he saw Axel, back in Iron Heights. He’d seemed so small and weak, until he kicked the teeth out of the guard who was bringing him dinner. They came back full force and beat the shit out of him, and Joey felt himself falling in love. They’d seen each other a few times out in the world since then, even worked together once or twice, but nothing more then that. But now Joey was so lonely that even the prospect of going into strip clubs had lost its appeal, and it seemed Axel was feeling the same way.

“You wanna get outta here, or..?” The question hung in the air for a second, the alcohol darkening Axel’s baby blues to the color of the ocean. No, it wasn’t just the booze. It was desire, too. Joey convinced himself of that.

“Yeah. Yeah. I got a place we can…yeah.”

They wound up in his apartment, with Axel blowing him into oblivion against the wall next to his front door. He was close, he was  _so close_ and then-

“Fuck me.” Axel hissed, his mouth impossibly close to Joey’s ear and oh fuck, he was wearing the airwalkers. He had slipped his pants off, so he was  _only_  wearing the airwalkers, and a good amount of paint. Joey grabbed him by the hips, pulling him down to where he wanted him. “Wait, hold on, I got a…" 

He pulled the condom out of…somewhere. Joey would’ve felt mildly insulted if he hadn’t been so turned on. But then he remembered where his dick would actually be  _going_  and, yeah, those things were lubed, right? Good idea. Axel had a lot of good ideas. But his best idea involved grabbing the base of Joey’s dick, bracing his legs against the wall, and impaling himself. Joey moaned. Axel screamed.

The world was a bit of a blur, after that. Joey remembered coming embarrassingly fast, then pinning Axel against the wall and making out with him until he was hard again. There probably wasn’t a surface in the apartment that they hadn’t defiled…or broken. His poor table. When they finally fell asleep sometime around dawn, it was in a nest of sheets and towels that they’d made for themselves on the floor, having cracked the box spring of his bed. Joey wrapped his arms around Axel and sighed, but it wasn’t a happy one. 

Axel’s guy was a Rogue, that much he knew for sure. And sooner or later, he’d find out what had gone down here. And then…who knew. Maybe he and Axel would break up, and the younger man would be all his. Maybe the guy would beat him to death. But for now…for now. Axel groaned in his sleep as Joey’s grip on him tightened. 

"Leggo.” He whined, wincing as he twisted in the larger mans arms. Axel would definitely be taking full advantage of those flying shoes tomorrow.

They woke sometime in the mid-afternoon, and Axel bitched about his ass and his hangover and the paint that still clung to every inch of his skin until Joey picked him up and hauled him into the shower. They bathed, ate some cereal, and eventually located Axel’s other shoe. Then, with one of Joey’s only button-downs  covering the bruises on his chest and shoulders, he departed. Through a window, of course.

“I’ll call ya.” He promised, eyes clear and bright in the midday sun. It was a bad sign that just the sight of them made Joey want to pull him back in and never let him go. But he did let him go, and fully expected to never hear from him again. Then, a few days later, his cell rang. “Yo, Joe! Listen, I was thinkin’. We had fun the other night, yeah? Why don’t we just…make that a regular thing? Anyway, I’m knocking over a jewelry store later, thought you may wanna come. See ya there!” He hadn’t been able to get a word in edgewise, but one truth stood out:

_Axel and his guy broke up._

He had a chance. A real chance! And he wouldn’t fuck it up. Joey grinned, letting his mind catch onto the tar truck that was passing by his window. He was gonna make this  _work_.


	5. Don't Call Me Back

“Look, we’re not gonna fuck anymore.”

Joey dropped his beer.

Axel had come over with a case of lifted PBR to drink while they watched the game. He’d been planning this conversation for maybe a week, but blurted out the base line before the first touchdown had been scored. He and Joey had been, for lack of a better phrase, fuck buddies for a few months now, and recently, the older man was acting weird. Wanting to just spend time with him, outside of bedrooms and crime scenes. Holding onto him even after the sex was done. It was getting way too personal. Like Joey  _liked_  him now, or something. And the way he was looking at him…

“But, what did I do? Dude, you gotta tell me what I did! Or do you just…” His eyes fell away from Axel, down to where his fingers were fiddling with a hole in his jeans. “Did you, like, find someone else?” Axel’s eyebrows shot up his forehead.

“Joey, whoa. Hold the fuck on. You’re acting like we’re dating.” Joey’s dark brows knitted together in confusion. “Oh my god, you think we’re dating." 

"Well, what would you call it?! We rob banks and blow shit up, then come back here and fuck, then order pizza!” Joey moved his hands a lot when he talked, but now he was practically flailing. “And it ain’t like I’m even your first boyfriend or anything, you should know how it works by now!” Oh, not right.

When they first hooked up, Axel made it perfectly clear that they weren’t to discuss Owen. Owen wasn’t even a topic anymore. He wasn’t a Rogue, he wasn’t in the cities, he was gone. He’d abandoned Axel, so Axel was forgetting him. By hopping into bed with someone who was dedicated to the Rogue mindset.

“I will fucking cut you if you bring him up, Joey. I will fucking cut you and leave you for dead in your own living room.” Axel threatened, hand shaking as he pointed at his soon-to-be-former lover. Joey winced, scratching the back of his head. Sore subject. Right.

“Look, Ax. I just…I don’t know what I did wrong. Maybe if you told me what I did, I could-”

“ _This_  is what you did, Joey. You’re trying to spin this into something it’s not. We’re fucking. We’re not dating. I’m not your boyfriend.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Axel found himself pinned to the couch, the larger man hovering over him with his hands on his shoulders.

“Shut up. Just…shut up! You came to  _me_ , Axel! The pretty legacy left you to pal around with a jailbait blonde on the other side of the law, so you came to  _me_. He made you feel like shit so I, I tried to. Tried to.” Joey sat back on his knees, the anger leaving his features, the hurt staying behind. “I was gonna fix you, dude.”

Axel wriggled out from underneath him, the momentary arousal from seeing Joey about to go full berserker completely gone.

“And that’s where you screwed up. I don’t need fixing. And I definitely didn’t want to  _talk_  about it. You’ve been going bitch on me, Joey. We’re still bros, but we’re not fucking anymore.” Before he left Joey’s rat-hole of an apartment, he threw out a final parting shot. “I had a boyfriend, and that shit didn’t work out. I don’t think I’m supposed to do the emotions thing, okay? I’ll call you.”

As he stepped out into the sunlight, Axel took off his glasses and slipped on his mask. It would be cruel to call Joey in less than a month.

He’d drop by tomorrow.


	6. Who Needs Your Club When I Have Mine

With all the major villains of the world missing, Central and Keystone were like a big, unguarded candy bowl on Halloween. The sign said take one, but Axel was determined to take it all.

With his record, his reputation, and the fact that he was the only  _real_ Rogue left in town, it wasn’t had to put together a gang. For a few weeks, the Trixters ruled the streets. And then Libra came along.

Libra wanted to recruit him and his gang into his  _new_  Secret Society. Some time soon, crime would rule all, and Libra wanted to make sure that the guy running the Gem Cities was in on the action. But Axel said no. He had his own base, his own gang, his own territory. What good would it do to him to share it with someone outside? But the real deciding factor was that Libra only wanted  _Axel_  on board, not his gang.

Libra offered him cars, drugs, whatever he thought a kid like Axel would want. Axel turned it all down. So he sent his  _first_  batch of “New” Rogues after them.  

And Axel and his gang slaughtered them like dogs.

Libra left him alone after that, but then the real Rogues came back. So he sent out a new offer, for them. Sent a new batch of his own Rogues when they refused.

And, well. Libra’s other followers found the bodies…eventually.

“We don’t wanna be in any club that wants us  _that_  badly.” Cold had said later, between his second and third beer. Axel found he had to agree. Their lack of interest in him was, after all, what made him so determined to be a Rogue in the first place.


	7. Missed Calls

“Hey, Axel, it’s Joey-”

_Delete._

“Yo Ax, it’s me-”

_Delete._

“Bro, this ain’t cool-”

_Delete._

“Call me back already, motherf-”

_Delete._

“I didn’t mean that, Ax-”

_Delete._

“Axel, why won’t you pick up the phone when I-”

_Delete._

Axel sighed, tossing his cell phone across the living room. He’d had fifteen missed phone calls, and nine messages, from Joey in the last day, and it was getting frustrating. Like a faithful pooch, Billy snatched the phone off the armchair where it had landed, dropping it on Axel’s head.

“Don’t throw stuff in the house. You break anything else, and dad will  _kill you_.” Axel rolled his eyes.

“M'graduatin’ in a week, then it’s off to college across the country. What’s he gonna do?”

“He’ll make you get a summer job down at that convenience store you like so much.” He sat straight up on the couch, whirling to glare at his brother. Billy was grinning.

“What do you think you know?” The taller boy flipped back over the couch, something both their dads had told him a billion times not to do. 

“I know that your ugly boyfriend keeps driving his clunker past our house in the middle of the afternoon. Jerrie told me.” Axel grabbed his face with both hands, groaning. “And I know that his name’s Joey, because that’s the name you keep pressing ignore call whenever it pops up at dinner. _And_  I know that you can’t get Owen to go beat him up because then  _he’ll_  know, too.” Billy gets up from the couch, flicking Axel on the forehead before walking off. And then Axel’s left alone with his thoughts.

Axel’s on his knees, ass up. His chest and cheek are pressed flat to the lumpy mattress. Joey loves him like this, owns him like this. He told him. His back is starting to cramp up, but he wants to  _know_. Owen’s done it before, done it with girls. He knows. He’s seen them getting out of his car, sneaking past his folks. Axel isn’t crying because it hurts, but it  _does_ , and Joey is heavy. He’s bigger than him, in every way. Feels like he’s splitting Axel in two. And then, after Axel comes but just before he does, Joey says something Axel can’t forgive.

“F-fuck, Ax…I  _love_  you.”

He almost wants to laugh. James and Hartley gave them all the Talk around the same time, though Jerrie was 18 to Billy’s 15, and Axel’s 13. Sat them all down in the living room and told them about babies. Hartley was the one who was hung up on virginity, though, mainly because his and Jerrie’s parents had been kind of religious.

“If you can, try and wait until you find someone who loves you. Who you wouldn’t be afraid to spend forever with.” He’d glanced at James in a funny way then, and that’s when Axel had to be, well, Axel.

“But Billy’s James’ son. He had him before you two even met. So sometimes, even when you don’t wait, it works out for the best, right?” He’d been so sure James was going to smack him, almost welcomed it. What did he care? He was the adopted one, his siblings were both biological. Instead, James laughed.

“Nah, I waited. There’s more than one way to lose your virginity, after all.” That’s when Hart had smacked  _him_ , and told them to go make lunch. Axel didn’t get it at the time.

Now he did.

Axel has tears running down his face, and Joey’s fat cock up his ass, and that motherfucker is telling him that he  _loves_  him. Like he  _means_ something to Axel in more than a I-wasn’t-sure-if-I-like-dick kind of way. And at that second, Axel knows that he’s going to have to avoid his second best friend and first kinda boyfriend forever, now, because he can’t handle this.

Fuck him raw, mark his neck, bite his ass, what the fuck ever. Just, just don’t say something like that. Not when he probably means it. He’d pretended to be asleep when Joey’d rolled him over, but wished he hadn’t been faking. Because Joey was so  _tender_  with him; cleaning off his stomach with some tissue, smoothing his hair away from his face. Holding him tight in his stupid, solid arms and making something in the pit of Axel’s stomach flip over. When he ‘woke up’, he tried to crawl out of Joey’s grip, but the other man just held him tighter, with this goofy look on his face. And that was when he realized that, fuck, Joey was  _in love_  with him, and he was just using him for experience.

He was a shitty person.

Now, he’s ignoring Joey’s phone calls, pretending he’s not home when Joey comes around. He’s stopped going to play Pac-Man at the convenience store after school. Axel’s trying to erase Joey from his life, and the other man is just not. Letting. Go.

It all comes to a head the next day, a Saturday. His last Saturday as a student. Axel’s supposed to be studying, and then Joey’s in his room. He’d knocked on the door, sweet-talked Jerrie, and now he was  _in Axel’s room_  and fuck his life, the asshole brought him candy.

“Look, I know you’re trying to freeze me out for some reason but I just.” Joey coughed, and Axel noticed that he smelled even more like a pack of cigarettes than he usually did. “I don’t want this to end. Whatever it is. Whatever I did wrong, tell me. You think maybe we rushed the, the sex thing? Because I can wait as long as you want until you-”

“Do you love me?” Axel interrupted, and Joey’s eyes went wide. “When we were…yeah. You said you loved me. Do you?”

The room was quiet for a few minutes, and they could both hear Jerrie watching Legend of Korra in the next room. Joey cleared his throat. Axel tapped his fingers on his desk.

“Y-yeah.” Joey had tried not to stutter, tried to hide the blush that had sprung onto his face by rubbing the heel of his hand against one of his cheeks. Axel sighed.

“Joey, no.” The taller man’s grip on the package of Twizzlers tightened. “I can’t…I can’t. There’s someone I like, like that, but he doesn’t know. And I can’t be with you if-”

“What the  _fuck_  Axel?” Axel jumped, and he heard a plate drop somewhere in the house. “How can you just-”

“You scared my sister, asshole!” He shoved past Joey, running until he found Jerrie in the living room. She was trying to clean up a bowl of egg salad that had shattered when she’d jumped off the couch. Joey was right behind him. “You made her…make yourself useful, go get some paper towels or something.” Jerrie was crying, and he immediately saw why. The bowl she’d broken was from her brother’s favorite set. “Shh, calm down. We’ll tell Hart I did it, okay?” Jerrie shook her head.

“No, n-no. I broke it, I’ll tell him. I’m sorry.” She teared up again, and he hugged her.

“Hey. I, uh. Sorry I yelled. I didn’t mean to, to freak you out or nothin’.” Joey was back with paper towels, a broom, and a dustpan. “You want me to clean it up, or…” Jerrie took the paper towels from him.

“I’ve got it. It’s okay. You two can go now, I can do it.” Axel kissed her on the forehead before standing and pointing to the door.

“We’re gonna just be out front, okay? I’ll be in in a minute, Jer.” He called as he herded the taller man out of the house. Axel leaned back against his door, glaring up at Joey. “What the fuck what? I never said I was gonna be your boyfriend. I never said I felt way that towards you. All I even said, and I quote, was, 'I think I might be gay’. How does that translate into 'I’m totally gay for  _you_ ’?”

“So now, what? You’re just gonna go off to this dude that probably isn’t even into dudes, and when he turns you down, you’ll expect me to just be hanging around, waiting for you to call me?” Who was Joey even trying to fool? The look in his eyes was desperate, as if he’d be doing  _exactly_  that.

“That’s fucked up.” Axel said softly. That was his main fear, the reason he hadn’t tried anything with Owen yet. Owen had been his best friend for, Christ. Since they were in elementary school. If Owen rejected him, he’d feel…a hell of a lot like Joey felt now. Axel shoved himself off his door, flashing Joey one of those winning smiles he used on his English teacher the few days he forgot his homework. “But yeah. No, yeah. That works. We’ll be reject boyfriends. Not wanted by anyone but each other. That  _cool_ , bro?” Joey recoiled away from him. Specifically, from the broken way he’d said 'cool’.

“I’m just gonna.” He was backing away from the house, towards his car. “Look. Just. Call me. Please? I may not be your first choice, but I still wanna be your  _friend_ , okay?” Axel nodded, and Joey got in his car and drove off.

When he went back inside, Jerrie was back on the couch watching Ninja Turtles. He gave her a headlock hug before heading off to his own room and flopping down on his bed. His phone buzzed, and Owen’s face popped up on the screen. “Talk to me.”

“Don’t try to be cool, you little shit.” He grinned.

“I don’t have to try, it just comes naturally. Seriously, what’s up?” Owen exhaled loudly. 

“My brothers just got here. Help?” Axel jumped off his bed, and began shoving stuff into his closet. 

“C'mon over, it’s just me and Jerrie until like, nine. We can study, aka play a bunch of video games and surf Redtube for hilarious porn.”

“It is  _on_. I’m gonna whip your ass on Rainbow Road. Going to Axel’s, ma!” Axel heard the hum of an engine. “Getting off the phone now. See you in five.”

“Why five?” Axel lives like, two blocks away.

“Do you want Wendy’s or not, you little mooch?”

“Bring me a Baconator, or don’t bother coming at all.” Owen laughs, and the sound of it makes Axel feel warm all over. “And fries!” The line goes dead, and Axel finishes shoving his laundry out of sight, then realizes that it’s  _Owen_ , and pulls it all back out again. He falls back to his bed, grinning.

Maybe he’ll tell him today.

Later.

After cheeseburgers.


	8. If You're Looking for a Show

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this was the first appearance of the Stripperverse.

It came as more of a surprise than anything that the first thing the Rogues did after a successful, meaning un-Flashed, heist was to go to a strip club. It surprised Owen that the Rogues were even able to get into a strip club at the same time, but the people at this place really seemed to like them. They had a collective reputation for being hard drinkers, good tippers, and the men most likely to step in when some asshole was hassling a dancer.

To their credit, it wasn’t a bad establishment. Cyclone served good, cheap booze, and the girls weren’t half bad, either. Still, and Owen was in the minority in thinking this, see one nice pair of tits, you’ve basically seen them all. He wasn’t being fair. Maybe it was from the stuff he’d read in the papers, but he’d expected something more than just…another night out with the guys.

The jumpy stage of his drunkenness set in after his third round of whiskey, and Owen nearly fell out of his seat when a muted cheer erupted from behind a closed door. He elbowed Evan, who had inhaled a bit of his scotch. The man coughed for a few more seconds, then nodded at the door.

“Ye wanna be keeping away from that lot. That’s where they keep the costume weirdos." 

Owen raised a brow. Wasn’t this a pot/kettle situation? Really, being costume weirdos was like, their day job. Evan snorted, and Owen realized he’d said it out loud.

"Nah, kid. In there’re th’ lads that get off on lasses parading around dressed as Wonder Woman. Sick stuff, says I.” Okay, that was a bit more interesting. He’d seen sexy superhero costumes on the internet long before he learned that his father used to go around fighting some of these same super-heroines. Owen stood, and Evan snorted again. “Don’ say I didn’t warn ye!”

The closed off room was maybe a quarter of the size of the main floor, and held about twenty men, all of whom had their attention locked on the center platform. Owen looked that way as well, and his breath caught in his throat.

The woman on the stage was dressed as Supergirl, and she could fly. Well, not literally, but the way she spun around so high in the air on the pole made it seem like she was flipping the bird at gravity and physics themselves. She was fairly flat-chested, but had killer legs, tight abs, amazing arms and, once her skirt flipped up a bit, an ass that God himself would have been proud to take credit for.

Her act was fairly basic; some spinning, coming down to the edge of the stage to accept tips, grind with Batgirl, more tips, dance a little on her own, even more tips. Owen snagged the arm of a  _very_  convincing Power Girl before he moved away from the door.

“Who is  _that_?” Power Girl laughed at his tone, and Owen felt vaguely annoyed.

“Honey, that’s Supergirl!” There was that flare of annoyance again. PG winked. “Off the stage, though, we call ‘er Axel.”

Axel.  _Axel._  Axel, with her fantastic body and near-hypnotizing moves. Axel with her stupid habit of flipping her hair into her eyes when someone paid her a direct compliment along with her tips. Axel with her red lips and toothy grin and ridiculously clear blue eyes. Owen sat by the stage for an hour and spent almost half his cut of the take before Mick came in and dragged him away.

They didn’t go to Cyclone much as a group, maybe three times in a few months, but Owen got into the habit of spending a few hours there one night every week, until something amazing happened.

Completely ignoring the man who had been showering her with tens for the past half hour, Axel walked over and sat in his lap.

“Help me out, please. He’s trying to get me alone for a private dance, and I can  _tell_  he’ll get grabby.” Her voice, sweet heaven her voice. Soft and breathy, and almost a little too high, like she’d been huffing helium. She smelled like sweat and some girly perfume. This was the closest Owen had been to Axel in the four months since the first time he’d seen her. “You don’t even have to pay me for real, just take me past the curtains until the bouncers come and kick him out." 

Owen nodded, and Axel flashed that grin his way. She climbed off his lap, taking him by the hand and leading him to the curtained-off area  by the bar. It was quieter there, but not by much. Axel sighed, leaning heavily against the wall.

"God, I dunno what I'da done if you hadn’t done this for me. Private dances are the only way I can leave the stage. Once we’re up, we ain’t even supposed to leave to like, pee. Peeg got a pass once because she puked on the stage, early in her pregnancy, but that’s like, it.” Axel scratched the side of her head, and it was then that Owen realized she was wearing a wig.

“That’s a-” Axel grinned.

“Yup! You come by on the same day alla time, else you’d have seen my other costumes. I got, uh.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Wonder Girl, chick Speedy, chick Robin, Stargirl anna couple others, but they’ve all got different hair lengths and shades and stuff. Saturday I’m Supergirl, though, 'cause that’s the one people pay the most for.” Owen tried to imagine Axel in something other than her Supergirl costume, and his mind stuttered. “Anyway, I see you a lot. Y'pay pretty good, too. How come you’ve never tried to get me back here?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I’m Axel, though y'probably already know that.” She stuck out her hand, and Owen shook it. Her fingers were so small compared to his.

“Owen. And I guess it’s because I, uh.” He tried to come up with the right words, but found himself lacking. Axel still nodded.

“No, I gotcha. Up there, I’m not quite real. Down here, I’m in your face.” She looked up at him and let out a screechy little laugh. “Uh, kinda. Damn, boy! Anyone ever tell you you’re tall as hell?” Owen would have answered, but then the music ended and a new song began, and Axel’s eyes got a dilated look to them. “Shit! I gotta get out there, this is  _literally_  one of my songs. Thanks again!” She took off like a shot, and Owen stumbled out a few seconds later, dazed. Axel was already on stage, pelvis to pelvis with Batgirl while Any Way You Want It blasted through the speakers. Power Girl came over and pinched him on the elbow.

“Nice save there, Romeo. We’re all going out for a beer after our shift is up, Axel, Batgirl up there, and me. Wanna come along?” Owen shook his head, then shook it again. He backed towards the door as quickly as he could without making it obvious that he wasn’t moving at the speed of a normal human. Once he was out of the costume room, however, Owen cut and sprinted.

He didn’t go back to Cyclone for about a month after that, and then it was his birthday.

He’d made the mistake of telling Mark one night when they were talking about astrology, and Mark told Evan, who told Mick, who told Len, who didn’t give a flying fuck and told them to get their heads out of the positions of the stars and back into planning jobs. They’d had a bank heist planned the same night as his birthday, and it was going pretty well until Owen accidentally got locked in the vault.

With a giant cake.

And then music started piping in from somewhere.

“I swear to fuck, you assholes, if there’s a sexy cop in that cake, I’m going to kill all of you.” A screechy little laugh rung out behind him, and Owen froze.

When he turned around, there was Axel. She was dressed in her Supergirl costume, dragging a folding chair out from behind the cake. 

“So, I hear it’s your birthday.” Owen just nodded, words trapped in his throat. “Well, c'mere, then. Don’t make me have to go over there and getcha.” He staggered over to the chair, plopping down into it. There was an ominous creak, but it held. And then Axel sat in his lap again, thighs sandwiching his legs together. “You got good friends. They all chipped in and, uh, rented me for the night, a few days ago.” She began to move in time to the music, slow and sweet. The acoustic version of Layla, good choice. Before he could stop himself, Owen felt his hands go to her narrow hips, but he dropped them with a flinch.

“Shit! Sorry, sorry. I remember what you said about-” Axel laughed again, throwing her head back and shaking her hair so that it brushed his knees.

“I don’t like it when  _creeps_  play grabass, Owen. You’re nice.” She ground against his lap. “And respectful.” Another grind, her hands leaving his shoulders to play with his sideburns. “And maybe even a little bit scared of me. I like that.” He grabbed her by the wrists, and Axel stopped moving.

“What did they pay you to do?” Her grin wavered in the face of his question, and she dropped her eyes from his face to his scarf.

“Just dance for you. I was thinking we could go get a drink or something after. I’m not, uh, legal though, so you’d have to buy.” Oh god. Oh Christ.

Oh  _fuck_.

“Axel.” Owen said calmly, keeping a firm grip on her wrists. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen!” She said angrily, trying to squirm her way out. He narrowed his eyes. “…seventeen. And a half.” Owen let out a groan, head falling back.

“What the fuck. What the  _fuck_. Do you know how old I just turned, Axel?” She shrank as far away as she could get.

“Twenty-one?” Owen groaned again.

“Twenty- _four_ , Axel. I’m twenty-four. And you, you’re not even legal to be working as a stripper!” Her grin was odd. Strained.

“They give me a little slack. Not a lot, but enough. I can’t drink or serve booze on-site, and I can’t give private dances. It’s…easier that way.” Something was off. Really, really off.

“Axel? What did you mean by that?” He’d let go of her wrists, and she was up and pacing.

“Shit. Look, I just. I’d understand if you didn’t wanna come back, but just. You can’t tell anyone I’m underage. There’d be an  _investigation_ , and a lot of people would lose their jobs, and they might even shut the club down and…Peeg can’t get fired, okay? Lucy has two kids, and she’s always looked out for me, got me in the costume room when it was pretty clear that I was a shitty bartender, kept my secrets…” She was babbling, pulling at her wig. Owen stood, going over to her and grabbing her by the shoulders.

“Axel, calm down. I won’t tell anyone that, that…” His fists had caught on the ends of her wig, accidentally yanking it off. “You. Uh. You’re.”

His face was still abnormally pretty without the long blonde hair framing it. Axel wouldn’t look Owen in the face, pulling away from him as quickly as he could.

“Yeah, I’m a guy.” He said it softly, but the high voice had been dropped. “But I’m too skinny to work Cyclone’s upper level, so they gave me a padded bra and stuck me in the costume room.”

Owen’s mind was going speedster-fast. Axel was underage. And male. He’d already come to grips with having a stripper-crush on Axel ages ago and…this information didn’t really change how he felt. For what it was worth, it seemed like Axel might just possibly feel something close to the same way, if his actions  _before_  the big reveal were to be believed. Owen cleared his throat, and Axel jumped.

“Well, I could definitely go for a beer. You coming?” And just like that, the smile was back full-force. 

“I’ve got a change of clothes in the cake. You, uh, want me to-” He made to put the wig back on, and Owen shook his head.

“Nah, you’re fine without it.”

Axel probably would have kissed him, if Len hadn’t started banging on the vault door, yelling about approaching police. Axel grabbed his clothes from inside the cake, and his wig off the floor. Owen took his hand as Evan opened up a 'door’ on the overly shiny back wall of the vault, pulling him through it.

Supergirl is still a staple in the costume room at Cyclone but then, so is her boyfriend, Captain Boomerang.


	9. Past Lives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the New 52-verse, before the first Flash annual.

The lights are out in Central City when Axel finds Owen again.

There’s something about the spark of defiance in otherwise fearful green eyes, but then again, he  _did_  pull a chicken gun on the guy. Maybe it’s that spark, maybe it’s the shabby state of his leather jacket and threadbare jeans, but Axel holsters the fowl and shakes his head.

“Not worth it. No offense.” The redhead laughs at that, and it’s enough to make Axel crack a smile. “I’m not usually the back alley shakedown type, anyway. Not when you don’t look like you’ve got anything I want.”  _What a lie._

The unbidden thought was enough to send his eyebrows shooting up his forehead. Where had  _that_  come from? Not that it was incorrect. Behind the lenses of his mask, Axel looked the other man up and down. He was tall. A little underfed, but strong-looking. His jacket had obviously belonged to a smaller person at one point, and it stretched nicely around wide shoulders. He wore his hair slightly shaggy, with one of those little goatees that usually made the owner look like a tool. Not in this case. 

After a few seconds, his subject seemed to become aware that he was being observed and started squirming under the scrutiny.

“If I don’t look like I have anything you want, the fuck’re you still looking for?” Axel let out a startled laugh, both at the absurdity of him being caught, and the fact that he’d still been staring. There was something familiar about this one. It was almost eerie, the sense of deja vu he got just looking at his face, hearing his voice. “No, really. What?”

“You ever been to jail?” The other man quirked a brow.

“Nope.”

“Juvie?”

“One, you’re not old enough for us to have gone to the same one, two, _no_.”

“Did I ever rob a bank with you in it?” His frustration was beginning to show in his tone. The redhead squirmed again.

“I’m telling you, man, I’ve never met you before in my life!”

“Then why the hell is your face so familiar, my brain is telling me I should know it anywhere?!” The words exploded out of him, and Axel threw his chicken against the wall behind him for emphasis. The spark in the other man’s eyes turned into a full-on electrical fire.

“Will you freakin’ quit it, you psycho?! Your little tantrum is gonna bring the whole building down! That bird’s full of,” He picked up the undetonated chicken. “Nitro. What the hell. How did I know that?” Axel shook his head, peeling off his mask to properly massage the bridge of his nose.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to  _tell_  you.” He said in exasperation  “For some reason, I-” He looked up, their eyes meeting, really meeting, for the first time.

It was like being hit by a truck. Memories he hadn’t had earlier that day flowed through him. Wrecking Keystone with boomerangs, clandestine kisses in shitty bars in cities where the Rogues and the Squad couldn’t find them, Len shoved him in the pit.

In Owen’s head, a similar event was taking place. His mind was rearranging itself around all the new information forcing itself in. He was Captain Boomerang’s son. He was a Rogue. He was a member of the Suicide Squad. He loved a boy named, “Axel.” He gasped. It wasn’t a question, but a declaration.  _I remember._

“Oh, thank fucking god.” Axel said happily, dropping his mask to the ground in favor of burying his unclothed face in Owen’s too skinny, yet still fairly taut stomach. “I was looking for you. All this time, I was looking for you. And I had no idea.” Owen wrapped his arms around Axel.

“It was life as though I’d never met my dad. Everything was the same, but nothing was right.” Would it be too cheesy to say that his very soul had sensed the lack of Axel in his life, and had been filling him with a sense of dread for as long as he could remember? Well, only if he said it in those words. “But…I’m cool now. You’re here. I can stop panicking." 

"So…what did you end up doing instead of being cool like me?” Owen laughed, picking Axel up by the waist.

“Worked at a movie theater and acted as the primary buzzkill for hormonal teenagers everywhere. But I think I could be talked into a career change.” Axel wrapped his legs around Owen’s torso, knees banging lightly into the wall, and it suddenly hit him that, whoa,  _alley_.

“I wouldn’t do that to you, baby. Not again. You might leave me again. The world already has a Captain Boomerang, it might decide to spit you out.” They’re not far from his apartment, only a couple of blocks. Owen could totally carry him all the way there, just like this. With the lights out and everyone panicking once the sun went down, no one would notice. “However…I could totally use a sidekick.” The look Axel gave him was filthy, full of promise. Owen grinned.

“Well golly sir. Let’s head on back to my ridiculously dark apartment and I’ll fill out an application.”

They laughed together for a few moments, before Axel suddenly ducked his head, pressing his lips to Owen’s neck in the way he liked. But it wasn’t Axel’s tongue that was getting him wet, unless he’d grown a second one. Axel was crying. “Ax? You okay?”

“I missed you so much.” He replied quietly, clinging tighter. “After…the pit, I tried to go back to just being this stupid kid, but it felt so wrong. So empty. And then I was in a place where you’d never existed, but at the back of my mind, I still knew I missed you.” Axel practically sealed his lips to Owen’s collarbone, his voice so low that the other had to strain to hear it. “You’re a part of me, O, and all the time I spent without you was like dying.”

They’d never said the words. Never even called each other partners. There were so many more important things to worry about, like getting caught. Like someone realizing that Axel wasn’t actually of age. Like one of them going out on a job or a mission and not coming back.

But that wasn’t this world. Somehow, it was safer here. Newer. The shine hadn’t worn off just yet.

“I love you, you know.”

Owen said it casually. In passing, almost. As if it wasn’t the most important thing he’d ever said. Admitted. Told someone, and meant it. There was a pause as Axel pulled his face away, looking up at him with still-damp eyes.

“Yeah, I know.” And he didn’t even have to say it. Owen could see it in his smile. In the flush on his salt-tracked face. “I do, too. I never stopped.” This world they’re in is new and bright. Problems from the past haven’t followed them here. And for the time being, they’re allowed to just…be.

The darkness in Central City had never felt brighter.


	10. Give Me a Call

Slam. Bam. Slam. The sounds of Axel banging in through the rooftop entrance, kicking a wall, and taking his soon-to-be tantrum into his room rang through the hideout. Mark winced, glaring in the general direction of the noise, holding his aching head.

“It’s not even noon, and I’m far too hungover for this shit, Axel!” A muffled apology made its way through the wall, but instead of questioning the sudden attitude shift, the master of the natural elements merely shrugged, going back to his cold coffee and newspaper. He dropped both items soon enough, when an equally muffled, but twice as loud, curse rocked Axel’s room.

It wasn’t fair. It just…wasn’t! Axel kicked at the locked door, and then at the busted up locker that served as his closet, throwing his shoes in it shortly afterwards. Owen wasn’t on the Outsiders anymore. That was good, right? That meant he’d had enough of the goodie goodie stuff and was coming back, right?

No, because according to one of Axel’s sources, Owen had decided to follow in his dad’s footsteps and take up with the Squad. 

Flopping to the bed, Axel took his tantrum out on the mattress, punching and kicking until he felt the springs groan in protest. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

He hadn’t seen Owen since his team, his other team, his  _second_  team, had been in Gotham. They’d called each other a few times, texted, planned to meet up…and now Owen was running with the Suicide Squad. Axel rolled over and over on the too-big bed until his face hit the single pillow. Unzipping the case, he rifled around for a moment until he located his prize.

It was starting to smell more like Axe shampoo than sweat and Owen’s cologne, but the scent of metal cleaner refused to fade away, so at least he had that left. Axel clutched Owen’s scarf in both hands, rubbing it against his face.

“Keep this for me, would you?” Owen had said the morning after their not-getting-back-together Gotham hookup, winding the scarf about his shoulders like a shawl. “Think of it as insurance. Now I’ve got two things tying me to Keystone.” He’d laughed and Axel’d scowled, and they’d made out while laying curled together in that hot motel room with the busted air conditioner, and Axel had secretly wished that Nightwing would never knock on the door and just leave them the fuck alone to enjoy this for a little while longer. But they were disturbed, Axel had to leave, and now all he had of Owen was a stinky scarf.

“He was supposed to come home.” He muttered, pressing his face into the scarf harder, a bit of the material falling into his open mouth as he spoke. “He’d come back, we’d get back together, we’d all pull jobs together again, and everything would be literally perfect.” Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity, Axel. “No, answering yourself is. Fuck.” He slammed the scarf into the mattress. “Fuck!”

Scent memories were powerful, and the combination of his distress and the familiar Owen smell clinging to him were doing odd things. Sexy things. Axel groaned. He was seventeen, in a state of near-constant horniness, and was about to get off on the smell of metal cleaner and sexts from his ex-boyfriend, fuck his  _life_.

Because, wow. Owen didn’t have the same filthy mouth that he did, but holy shit was he creative. Axel scrolled through his phone for a good conversation. He saved all of them, but the best ones, he locked. Finding one from last week, he bit his lip.

 _We should be coming around to the cities soon. I miss you._  Axel wiped his face with his hand. It was hot. That was sweat. That’s all.  _Grace keeps asking about the cute blonde from Gotham. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she wanted a foursome._  That had made him laugh. Red and the shorter girl had gotten back to the motel a few hours after they had, and holy  _shit_  were they loud. He could actually hear it when their bedframe splintered.  _Still, I’m wondering a bit about that cute blonde from Gotham, myself. Been shopping, recently?_  He hadn’t, actually. Not since Evan intercepted a package for Cassidy Butch and opened it. The entire team had had a nice time wondering who had screwed up on the other end, sending a box of floaty negligees and lacy panties and garters and the works to a house full of men. Well, except Mark. Cassidy Butch was about as obvious an alias as, say, James Jesse.

Axel’d told him about the clothes anyway, as well as their final fate, and could practically hear Owen laugh.  _Bummer. You’d have looked hot in that stuff. You said one pair of stockings was blue? With garters to match?_  As he read through the conversation, Axel unbuttoned his pants, kicking them off the side of the bed. The scarf seemed to smell stronger, the longer he held it to his nose.  _I’d want you like that, this time. No dress, no wig, no panties. Just you in the stockings and garters, and the black heels you practically kicked through the mirror in Gotham._  

He’d been in such a hurry to get undressed that night, when Owen had stopped him, he’d been confused. Did he not want him naked? But then Owen had kissed him, deep and lingering, reaching behind him to unzip the dress. It had fallen off him, and Owen had followed it, kissing down his chest and stomach, licking up the inside of his thighs before…Axel sighed, cupping his freed erection.

 _Would you like that, baby?_  He  _could_  hear him, then. In his memory, sighing the endearment into his ear.  _Baby_ , Owen would say as he licked at the embarrassing bruises he’s sucked into Axel’s flesh. As he threaded his fingers into Axel’s hair, when Axel was on his knees and Owen was about to come. When they were lying together in the afterglow, still joined together, because Axel hated that immediate sense of loss when Owen pulled out, and Owen spoiled him something fierce in bed. Axel bit down on the scarf, pumping slow, thrusting up into his hand.

 _I knew you would. I know you. How about the next time I’m in town, we go to another club? Dress you up, give me the chance to feel you up on the dance floor._  That’d touched on his need to be seen, sending jolts of excitement straight to his dick. No one dresses up in a colorful costume when they just want to rob banks. It’s the attention hounds that have to have the gimmicks, and Axel was no exception.  _Wonder if I could get you worked up enough to have you show through your dress._  The excitement of possibly being caught, that was another one. He moaned around the scarf, speeding up slightly. 

 _I want you. So bad, you have no idea. I can’t even look at anyone else that way. I didn’t know how much I needed you in my life until I saw you again._  So come home, Axel had all but begged. Come back to me. I can’t do the hero shit, it’s not my thing. I need you with me, too.  _I can’t now. But soon, baby. I promise._  Axel snorted. Some promise. The rest of that conversation had been pretty words and declarations of need and passion. Nice, but not what he wanted right now.

 _I would slice a man’s head clean off right now if there was a way to get you here, naked, and riding me in the next five seconds._  There we go. From the Monday after their hookup.  _Last weekend wasn’t enough. It’ll never be enough. I need you, Axel. I need to feel you, and taste you, and hold you, and bury myself in you. Scratch your hips that way you like._  Axel shivered. His whole body was shivering with about to blow tremors.  _I want to mark you from the inside out, drink you down when you come. I want everyone to know that we belong to each other. I want to be able to smell you on my skin._

He was practically chewing on Owen’s scarf, feet planted on the bed, knees spread. His hips rose into the air, pushing his pumping hand higher and higher until finally, Axel came with a loud whine. He could almost feel Owen’s big, warm hands on the inside of his thighs as he wound down, petting him. Pulling the scarf out of his mouth, he balled it back up and stuck it under his pillow, along with his phone. He couldn’t read the rest of the message while he cleaned himself up. Didn’t want to.

_I don’t think there’s been a second since you walked out of my room in Gotham that I’ve stopped thinking about you. I miss you so much, baby. I really do._


	11. Mr. Walker

Owen has A Problem. Capital a, capital p.

His Problem has nothing to do with both his half-brothers being alumni of the fraternity he’s pledging, nor with the p-frosh niece of his journalism teacher, who is convinced that they’re best friends now because he stopped some guys from harassing her. The Problem doesn’t even have much to do with how he’s a step away from flunking 18th century European history, arguably the dullest course he’d signed up for next to physics 101, though it  _is_  directly related to the teacher.

Professor Giuseppe had been absent for a good two weeks of the quarter, due to his ‘roommate’ (boyfriend, whispered the hallway gossip) getting into a disagreement with a cement truck on the road one night. The cement truck won, and the poor guy had been in a coma ever since. So instead of an actual teacher, they had a teacher’s assistant.

A young teacher’s assistant.

A barely pushing twenty teacher’s assistant.

And really, Owen had spent three years in junior college after putting off school for two. He’d gotten all his minor credits in order, and now he was here to get his business degree, as well as take a few classes on subjects he was actually interested in. He was a grown man, damnit, unlike the rest of the pimply-faced, fresh outta mom’s kitchen kids that sat all around him.

He couldn’t stop staring at his TA’s ass if a someone held a gun to his head and ordered him to.

But Mr. Walker, that was the name he’d written on the board the day he’d shown up instead of Professor Giuseppe, he knew his shit. Names, dates, stories, he could tell you what was what and make it interesting. He  _liked_  history. Respected it. And really, Owen could respect that. So he sat in class, copied notes, answered questions, and tried not to fantasize about ripping off those hideous grampa khakis and leaning him over the podium.

It worked, for a while. Sort of. Okay, so he might have voluntarily signed up for extra tutoring to help bring his grade up, and it’s  _possible_ he could have asked one personal question too many (“You don’t have to call me Mr. Mercer, y'know. My name’s Owen. And this is the part where you tell me  _yours_.”

“Oh. Axel. Anyway, back to the Celts.”). But really, every time he stomped down on a part of the Problem, a new part would jut up. Once he’d gotten control over his urge to practically laser a new hole through Axel’s backside, Owen noticed that his head was partially shaved. Once he tamped down the desire to rub the fuzzy stubble on the side of Axel’s head, he’d noticed just how stupidly  _blue_  his eyes were behind his glasses. Once he’d lassoed the need to snatch away the specs that were dulling the color of his second-favorite feature, he’d gotten a good look at the chip on Axel’s left canine as he smiled particularly wide when Owen exhibited a new level of comprehension of the chapter they were working on, and he realized he was screwed.

One Friday afternoon, after a particularly incomprehensible lesson regarding the French Revolution, Axel dropped the highlighter he’d been using to the desk and stretched, leaning back against the wall of his tiny office.

“Okay, I think we can leave it here for today. Read the rest of the chapter over the weekend, and email me if you have any questions.” His phone, which had been making noises for the last hour, buzzed again. Axel grinned. Owen felt his heart sink.

“Big plans for tonight?” He asked casually, gathering up his notes slowly, but not so slow that he looked like he was stalling.

“Kinda. A friend who went here last year is coming into town, we’re gonna hit a club. How about you?” Owen shrugged, snapping the papers into his binder.

“My frat’s having a party or something, I wasn’t really paying attention. Probably just an excuse to sneak booze onto campus and get a bunch of half-naked people in the house. I’m gonna have to lock my door to make sure no one 'accidentally’ ends up making out in my bed.” He made quotes with his fingers, and Axel laughed. “Still, so long as no one falls out a window again, it probably won’t be all bad.”

Grace and her girlfriend what’s her name were gonna be there, which meant that Jennie-Lynn and her brother were probably going to be there, which meant that Todd’s pre-law pal was going to be there, so at least he’d have people to talk to. Hell, he might even get laid if he played his cards right. Axel stood up, grabbing his backpack off the back of his chair.

“Well, have fun. Try not to drink too much, though, last thing I need is an inbox full of keysmash emails about how King Louis was a twat.” His phone began to ring, and Axel sighed. “ _What_ , you impatient asshole? Yeah yeah, I’m leaving now. Leaving my  _office_. No, I’m not dressed. Shut up, you know what I meant. Whatever, just be out front, I threw a change of clothes in my bag this morning. Yeah, I- what do you mean she’s. Joey.  _Joey_.” Axel waved a hand at him, and Owen scrambled to grab the rest of his things. “Look, I don’t  _care_  what she said, it’s not like that. Because she’s a gossipy bitch who lives to make me miserable, okay?” As he finally ducked out of the office, Owen heard one last snippet of the conversation:

“Nothing’s going on because I’m not interested. He’s my  _student_ , okay? So calm the fuck down and stop listening to everything Ams says because she’s  _full of shit_. I’ll see you out front.”

***

Owen didn’t have fun. Not that he didn’t try, of course.

When Evan had yelled keg stand, he’d volunteered for a keg stand. When some Gotham kids crashed, he’d helped deliver the 'no booze, no entry’ ultimatum. When a giant linebacker-looking guy walked in, trailed by a much smaller, skinny kid with a partially-shaved head and tight jeans, he’d jumped over the back of the couch to hide.

Axel. Of all the frat parties on all the nights in all the year, Axel had to come calling on  _this_  one.

“What’re you hiding from?”

Owen nearly pissed himself. Kara the p-frosh and two of the Gotham girls (underage underage underage his mind repeated) were all kneeling around him. It was like a fucked up, drunken prayer circle.

“My history TA just walked in and if I go and talk to him now he’s gonna find out that I’m stupidly crushing on him. And I know I’ll tell him because I’ve been keeping that under wraps for almost five months and I just told  _you_  guys, and I don’t even know you.” The blonde Gotham girl held out her hand.

“Steph. That’s Cass. And Kara totally knows you, she says you’re cool. _Anyway_ , I’d be more concerned about the guy he’s currently dating crushing your nuts with his car than anything else.” Owen peeked out over the top of the couch. The tall guy, Joey, was talking with a couple of equally tall guys from another frat. He looked angry. Axel was nowhere to be found.

And then he was sitting on the couch, grinning over his shoulder at Owen.

It was like the hideous khakis held together the teacher facade, and without them, he was just another guy. Owen felt his heart stutter in his chest. The dark-haired Gotham girl, Cass, punched his shoulder, getting his attention.

“Someone is arm wrestling people in the kitchen, we’re gonna go check it out.” Kara yelled, and Owen waved her off. Then, it was just him and Axel. And, y'know, the five hundred or so other drunken college students that’d packed themselves in the house.

But they weren’t important.

“So, what happened to the club?” Axel sighed, taking a sip off the bottle he was holding and wrinkling his nose. Owen copied him.

“My fake ID didn’t hold up. Joey’s 22, I’m 19, and the club was 21 and over.” He practically choked on his mouthful of beer.

“Nineteen?! How the shit are you a TA when you’re nineteen?!” Axel smirked.

“I took the class last year, when I was a freshman, and had the best grades of everyone taking it. Showed the best understanding of the material, and stuff. I’m a history major, so that kinda helps. Also, I kinda think Professor Giuseppe is hoping the stress of teaching his lesson plans and tutoring people causes me to drop out so he doesn’t have to put up with me when he comes back. If he comes back.” Axel’s expression fell. “Hart, his roomie, isn’t looking too good. Five months with no real response…if he dies, the prof ain’t coming back here. He’ll up and change schools.”

Shit. His aim hadn’t been to bum Axel out. Time to change subjects.

“So, did Joey graduate?” That caused Axel to chuckle. Good, laughter was good.

“Nah, he dropped out. He’s working with his brother now. He was actually my roommate last year. He’s not a bad dude just kinda…” He trailed off, eyes traveling over to where Joey was now yelling at the other tall guys. “Prickly, I guess. And possessive.” He said that last part quietly, taking another draw off his bottle, and Owen finally noticed the light bruising on one of his wrists.

“Do you, uh, see him, then?” Axel’s face heated up, and he immediately went on the defensive.

“It’s not like that. I know what you’re thinking and. It’s not like that. I’m just…smaller than him. And he’s a giant dumbass who doesn’t know how to hold back. Besides I’m not gonna be seeing him anymore after tonight.” Oh. Oh! That got his attention. “He’s into some shit, with his brother. I can’t be linked to that.” Their heads snapped to look as the yelling became a scuffle, and the two tall guys called over a few more tall friends, and together the lot of them bodily removed Joey from the house. “Shit, looks like I gotta go. He’s got my stuff in his car. See you Monday, alright?”

As he stood, Axel set his bottle on the top of Owen’s head and grinned. "That’s a good look for you, a redwood coffee table.“ Owen snorted.

"Get outta here before he sets my dorm on fire.” Giggling and shooting him the deluxe finger, Axel strode out of the house after his…boyfriend? Soon to be ex?

…possible killer?

Owen shook his head, and the beer clattered to the ground. Thankfully, it didn’t break. Picking up the bottle, he drained the rest of it on the way up to his room. Socializing was exhausting, and he was on the edge of blackout drunk. Besides, no one would miss him, not this late in the party.

Setting the empty bottle on his nightstand, Owen shucked off his jeans and shirt, pulling his covers up to his chin. He’d email Axel tomorrow, just to make sure he was okay.

***

Not even three hours after he slunk off to bed, someone was banging on the door to his bedroom.

“Mercer, open up. Some dude’s down on the porch for ya.”

Owen groaned, yawning as he pulled on his jeans. It was almost 4 am by his watch; too late to still be partying, too early to be awake. Who the hell-

Axel.

His mind woke up immediately, foregoing shoes and a shirt to simply run out the door. Axel and Joey broke up, he realized how much he liked hanging out with Owen, they were gonna-

His thoughts ground to a halt as he slammed into a brick wall of a human being. Oh.

 _Shit_.

“You’re him. The student.”

Amazingly, Joey didn’t look like he was coming down off the high of one murder, and gearing up to commit another. He just looked…sad.

“A friend of mine says you’re into Axel.” Owen cringed and really, that said it all. “Well, you’re gonna get a crack at him. He’s, we’re not. Hngh.” He sat down on the porch steps. “He dumped me. And he’s kind of a shithead.” Not daring to leave the doorway, Owen leaned back against the frame.

“You know, you’re really bad at talking up your friends.”

“He’s not my friend.” He said it quietly enough, but Owen winced anyway. “He’s not my anything anymore. You know how we first hooked up?” Wow, there was the last thing in the world he wanted to think about. “He was such a shit about it. Climbed into bed with me one night. Said he was sick of watching me try to be subtle. Why do the smart ones always have to be assholes?” Owen snorted.

“He’s not an asshole, he’s just…direct.” Joey’s face twisted into a sneer.

“You don’t even know him!” And he was off the steps, crowding himself into Owen’s space. “You see him a couple hours a week and think you’re an expert?! Axel’s an asshole. And unless you’re an asshole too, he’s gonna use you up and spit you out. So. Consider that a warning.” He seemed to deflate, backing away and off the porch. At the last moment, he pointed at Owen. “I saw you two tonight. He must be into you, too, because he  _never_  laughs that easy with people he don’t like. He’s an asshole, but he doesn’t open up much. So. Don’t you hurt him. Or you deal with me.”

Owen didn’t go back inside until Joey had gotten into his car and started to drive away. Instead of trudging back up to his room, where his whirling mind would supply scenario after scenario until he fell into a fitful sleep, he chose to start cleaning up the aftermath of the party. No one had puked inside this time, so it was mostly a matter of walking around with a trash bag and trying not to step on unconscious people.

He did that until the sun came up, and his body finally gave out on him.

***

“Mercer, wake up. Some dude’s on the porch looking for you.”

He’d fallen asleep on one of the couches, surrounded by bulging bags of recyclables and trash, still shirtless and barefoot. His brain barely registered the words being spoken to him, stumbling a bit as he made his way over to the door.

“Oh thank god, you’re alive. Take this.” A paper cup filled with coffee from the student center was shoved into his hands, and Owen greedily gulped it down. Axel surveyed him over the top of his shades. “So, I understand Joey came back last night?” Oh, fuck.

“Yeah.” His voice was kind of thin, from drinking something so hot after a night of beer. “We didn’t fight, though. He says you’re an asshole.” Axel’s laugh was hollow.

“I am. I really am. Go put on a shirt, you’re buying me breakfast.” Owen slowly pulled the cup away from his mouth.

“Hah?” The shorter man snorted, running a hand through his hair.

“You like me. Pretty sure you’ve already been informed that I like you, which kinda ruins my plans for a big reveal next week, but whatever. I also like waffles. So grab a shirt and some shoes and your wallet, because we’re going to Waffle House to talk about things that aren’t Napoleon and my ex.” His confused expression slowly began to morph into a smile.

“Napoleon isn’t part of the curriculum, he’s 19th century European history.” Axel snorted again.

“I TA that class, too. Chop chop.”

Owen raced up the stairs, got dressed, and ran back down again in record time. His brothers would have been proud. Axel was still standing on the porch, fiddling with his phone. He slid it into his pocket once he spotted Owen.

“Sorry, had to tell someone to fuck out of my life. You wouldn’t know her.” He wrinkled his nose. “Or like her. Anyway, waffles! Tell me you have a car.” Owen pointed out his junker.

“It’s a wood-paneled piece of shit station wagon, but it’s  _my_  wood-paneled piece of shit station wagon. Also, I can fit my whole dorm room in there in one go.” Axel grinned, hopping off the porch.

“That your way of telling me the back seat is huge?” Owen missed the last step and stumbled, but remained upright. “Calm down, Romeo, I was kidding. I mean, you’re in a frat that generally doesn’t have double rooms, so.” As they got in the car, he put his hand over his heart.

“You’re trying to kill me. We haven’t even had our first date, and you’re trying to kill me. This bodes  _so_  well.” Axel laughed, and punched him in the arm.

They chatted about various things, other classes, music, stupid shit their friends did, but before they walked into the restaurant, Owen paused.

“There are gonna be like 50 people in there that hooked up last night and are trying to find common ground this morning.”

What happened next was like something out of a bad movie.

Shaking his head, Axel muttered, “Oh my  _god_  you think entirely too much.”, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, dragged him down, and kissed him until his knees began to shake.

“There.” He gasped, pushing himself away a bit, so he wouldn’t be tempted to go back for more. “First base, and I know we both like history and shitty beer. Now,  _waffles_.”

Dazed, Owen held the door open for him and while they were waiting for a table to open up, he quietly threaded his fingers with Axel’s.

Maybe this asshole kid would end up ruining his life. Maybe they’d be together forever and adopt a bunch of puppies after graduation.

Whatever happened next, it was totally up to them. He considered this Problem solved.


End file.
